Proper tournament clarifications

[Resist_Temptation]

While shuffling at a local tournament I noticed my opponent was playing Blue and turn one playing Rock, I cabal therapy him and name force of will. He calls a judge saying that I cheated. The judge (not being certified but the most knowledgeable out of the playgroup there..)takes my opponents side, and the end result is I get a warning and my cabal therapy ends up hitting double FOW. ^.^

I feel like an idiot for even questioning this, but as I have not read the comprehensive rulebook word for word I feel that I should ask anyways. I was not at fault for any of this am I?

[rocketrae21]

Its not like you picked up his deck. You could have scouted or even just blindly went with FoW. If he is bad at shuffling then its really his own fault.

[Penguinizer]

If you looked at his cards while shuffling/cutting his deck, then yes. Otherwise, no. There's nothing that could have stopped you from just seeing him play control while walking around between rounds. You could (not specific to this case) have seen him playing control at a previous tournament and guessed. There is no way to prove unless he catches you actively looking at your cards. It's pretty common to get a general idea of what others are playing between rounds. As far as I know, there is no rule against this or just randomly guessing. I'm guessing your opponent got angry at losing his double FoW due to a lucky guess and tried to fish for a gameloss due to "cheating". He might have kept an otherwise bad hand for the double FoW and losing them means he's screwed. That's just unsportsmanlike conduct, plain and simple.

[cdr]

When someone is asking a question about the rules, if you don't know the rules answer, you probably shouldn't post.

You say "While shuffling at a local tournament I noticed my opponent was playing Blue", but it's not clear what you mean by that.

If your opponent is unintentionally revealing cards while he's shuffling, that's ok to a point - you can't go out of your way to look at his deck, and if he's doing something like shuffling with the cards facing you he's not shuffling and you need to tell him to shuffle properly.

Intentionally looking at your opponent's cards - either while you're handling the deck, or by going out of your way to see his cards while he's shuffling - is Cheating.

"C. A player intentionally looks at the faces of an opponent’s cards while shuffling an opponent’s deck."

There's three options here - no penalty, disqualification, or perhaps a warning - but the warning would only be for Looking at Extra if you or your opponent unintentionally flipped cards while shuffling.

[Resist_Temptation]

Thanks that is the ruling that I am looking for.

[Arsenal]

If your opponent is unintentionally revealing cards while he's shuffling, that's ok to a point - you can't go out of your way to look at his deck, and if he's doing something like shuffling with the cards facing you he's not shuffling and you need to tell him to shuffle properly.

I side shuffle and have small hands. I typically side shuffle, then use the tabletop as a third "hand" to level the cards and mash them together. This unfortunately means my card faces are visible to my opponent. I could turn my body 90 degrees so that neither myself nor my opponent can see the card faces during my shuffling, but would that cause any concern?

[Obfuscate Freely]

I have small hands.

By the way, if you're playing The Rock, why would you Therapy Force of Will? That card seems really weak against a mid-range attrition-based deck. If the only information you have is that your opponent is playing blue, I think Brainstorm is a stronger name, every time.


When I'm shuffling either deck during a match, I hold it off to my side, with the cards angled behind me and toward the floor.